Oh, how I'd like to begin this post with a string of curse words. But that would be too easy. Fun but too easy. You see, I'm pretty good at cussing. I refined the skill, not because I have degrees in wordsmithing in various formats, but because I spent several years in the restaurant industry serving overpriced pasta and cocktails to ingrates and then buzzing to the back of the house to speak unkindly of them with my peers. Ditto that for the years I was a college instructor, nanny and nonprofit consultant. While I'm not ready to clue my 3-year old into these particular skills, I do admit that it sometimes pains me to rein in the swearing when I am speaking of irritating drivers, current federal administrators and even certain playgroup mommies.
But I do it. I swallow the big five and instead blurt out nearer-to-niceties like crap, effing, fuhreaking, and the trinity of Good Lord, Good God and Jeeeeebus that apparently (from various looks and/or shooshing I've received from my husband and mother-in-law) don't cut it for some full-on censorship around children kind.
The conversation about what words are acceptable is on at Motherhood Uncensored where the question has been raised: What constitutes a cuss word? As you might expect, tons of muhfuckers (oh Jeebus, that feels good) are responding with their own bomb-dropping boundaries. While I do think a kid who swears is not cute and is quite uncomfortable, I just don't think crap registers as the forbidden flavor of adult vocabulary. Perhaps this all calls for a hierarchy of cursing, maybe even a chart based on the homeland security alerts.
Red alert could call for parents to run to the bedroom where they spew all kinds of f-words into a pile of cashmere sweaters. Orange alert could call for simply mouthing the offender, yellow for watered-down swearing with a raised fist shaken with moderate fury, and so on. Even as such, no matter how extensive your (or your child's) vocabulary is, sometimes there is no better way to express frustration over a new work policy or science grade than "That's total crap yo." And eventually, no matter how much you dookie up your bullshit conversation, everyone in the room knows exactly what you're getting at.
How high alert are the potty mouths in your house? Seriously, betches, let's put our skills and charts to real use and talk this shit out.
